Perfume and Mistletoe
by Lizzie Weasley
Summary: Ron regrets ever getting that unusual perfume fro her last Christmas. But now, another year later, something happens to change that opinion. Sweet RH fluff just in time for the holidays.


**(A/N) Hi guys! Another original one-shot by me! Of course this one is for the Christmas challenge on I had wanted to make one for the holidays anyway. And funnily enough it was to be somewhat like this to begin with. Well, I hope you enjoy. Read on and remember to review**.

**(Disclaimer) All these wonderful characters, shamefully, aren't mind. But all hugs, kisses, and little sweet nothings by our favourite couple included in this story surely are.**

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_Perfume and Mistletoe_

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I watched her as she put up the tinsel and wreathes on the dormitory doors in the Gryffindor common room as I pretended to be thinking of where to put the little fat Santa Claus. It was the Prefect's job to help with the decorations and this year and Hermione insisted they do the common room as well. Leave it to Hermione to make things more complicated than they have to be. We had spent the last two hours working on just this room and actually I could admit it didn't look half that bad. Okay, so it looked amazing, but it was all credited to Hermione, really.

Harry and Ginny had been outside along with everyone else in the Gryffindor house for half that afternoon, playing in the snow. I had begged and pleaded to go too, but of course Hermione had objected. However, it wasn't that bad, really. I got to watch Hermione the whole time so it wasn't all a waste. Besides, this was about the only time I had to spend alone with her, these long hours of Prefect work. And tonight, even if it was Christmas, I'd spend all the hours until dawn working if she would be there with me too.

And it just so happened that tonight, Hermione looked simply lovely. Her big red sweater made her eyes seem as if they were two rather sparkly chestnuts and she was wearing those blue jeans that fit her just right. And her hair, how I loved the way those curls looked so soft and fluffy. Almost as if I could sink into them like a feather pillow. She was lovely, but she was _always_ lovely. She just couldn't seem to change that. But would she ever know that herself?

Well, I tried once hadn't I. Yes, I couldn't say I didn't. Exactly a year ago, to be in fact. And now that it just so happened to be the anniversary of that fateful day and since I _was_ around Hermione on, well what do you know, _that_ _day_, I couldn't help but think about it. Yes that wonderful day I lost my sanity and turned into the miserable blob I was then, oozing in my remorse.

The Christmas of my fifth year was when I had planned to do it. I had planned it since the beginning of that year in fact. I would finally change the way Hermione and I thought of each other forever on that Christmas night. I'd finally tell her exactly how I felt. And if she decided not to answer back, ask if I was insane, tell me she loved Harry instead, ditch me completely, or just laugh in my face, I'd be just fine with that too. I'd just, you know, have to kill myself. BUT I _was_ going to tell her.

…I just didn't know how exactly.

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The entirety of Christmas Eve day was dedicated to sweaty palms and stinging red ears that so sorrowfully rebelled no matter what the case. I just could stop myself from shaking every time I thought of what was lying upstairs in my trunk at that exact moment. Why, _why_ must I do this to myself?

"Ron, could you pass the potatoes, please?"

Well, there was the answer.

"Huh? Oh, er, yeah!"

I handed Hermione the bowl of mashed potatoes while she talked and laughed with Ginny on her other side. Hermione didn't even notice me staring at her as if in a trance for the past fifteen minutes. Ginny was looking at me kind of funny-like, but Hermione didn't seem to take a glance my way.

Maybe I shouldn't do it. Maybe it would only be a waste of time. How could she react that way? It's not as if I was someone to feel that way _about_. I wasn't Prince Charming, or rich, or the most famous name to the known Wizarding world, or a popular although-not-quite-handsome Quidditch player. I wasn't even a hero. I was a sidekick, a poor, meaningless boy. I was Ron. Just Ron.

Speaking of Ron…

"Ron! You're elbow is in the gravy!" Ginny's voice rattled suddenly in my brain and I was jerked most unpleasantly from my thoughts.

"What?"

I sat up from the daze and looked down. Sure enough there it sat- the cursed joint in the middle of a bowl of thick brown sloppy stuff. If I thought my ears were stinging before it was nothing like they were then.

"What were you doing, Ron? I was going to have some of that for my potatoes!" Ginny whined, before setting off in a fit of laughter.

I slid my other hand over the offended elbow and stopped the brown slop from dripping on the table or the seat of my pants. Laughter drowned out the swear words slipping casually off of my tongue at the moment and I didn't even listen to my conscience telling me to watch my mouth or Mum would surely kill me. Even Hermione sounded like she was laughing.

I looked up. Sure enough there she sat, laughing just like Ginny was beside her.

I had never blushed that hard before in my life. The last thread of courage I had obtained within the hours last night I had spent wrapping Hermione's present, had suddenly been cut down the middle by that silly frizzy headed girl herself. There was no choice now about whether or not to tell her. I couldn't. I just… couldn't.

After dinner and late into the night, I thought about nothing but the little package now laying softly at the end of Hermione's bed along with the other multiple parcels and presents. What would have happened if I had given it to her before she drifted of to sleep; if we had been alone downstairs like I had planned; if I had told her how much I cared that we were friends- that we were only friends?

Probably the same as she did the next morning.

Harry and I unwrapped our presents together in our room just as casually as always. I tried my best to pretend there was nothing bothering me, but the fact was I didn't even know what I had even unwrapped until I was done. Fred and George had come in as well. I added to the conversation a bit, but I hadn't really heard what they were saying until much later. Instead a dull buzz rocked my brain and the only thing to pierce it was the thought 'has she opened it yet?'

Harry had decided to go down for breakfast after a while and I trudged along after him in a dead walk. We met Hermione on the stairs looking like she had just rolled out of bed with a package in her hands. She hadn't even changed from her bed robes yet and her hair was frizzy and splayed in all different directions.

…She was beautiful.

My heart fell into my stomach and questions rolled around my head searching for a way out. Did she like it? Did she even open it yet? What did she think of it? Did she like it as much as Harry's? Did he get her something better?

Hermione smiled sleepily and I felt my heart catch in my throat when she opened her mouth to speak.

"Thanks for the book, Harry!" she said happily. I let out a low sigh under my breath and didn't hear the rest of her conversation about the book with him. I didn't care. Harry got her a book. Just a book. Nothing special and flashy. Nothing that would confess his love. Just…a book.

"And that perfume-"

I sucked in a large breath again and started to panic. This was it. The moment I had waited for. Every thing and our future rested on the next couple of words. It was all going to come out now. The way she felt. The way I felt. Everything.

"…is really unusual, Ron."

I felt his heart pulsating through my body and I let the choking sensation in my throat drop to my empty stomach. I was suffocating on my heart, and the tears I wouldn't let out were drowning me inside. All this time it was… _unusual_. All that time and courage I had spent just picking out the right present, the perfect present. All the money I had saved just to order it especially for her, especially for this day, gone to waste. It was…_unusual_. And, sadly enough, this proved we were still friends; we were just friends. The end.

Gathering up the pieces of my broken heart I straightened out my face and thought of a quick reply. Something that was a dead lie and I knew it well.

"No problem."

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I watched Hermione now, putting the last wreath in place and turning to the box of mistletoe with an almost exhausted sigh. And there I stood, still holding that stupid, fat Santa looking directly at her as though my whole existence depended on it. I quickly adjusted my gaze blushing feverishly even though I was quite sure she hadn't noticed my stare.

"Well, that's about done. All that's left is the mistletoe." Hermione nodded towards the box suggestively and gave a small, accomplished smile towards me. I smiled as well, threw the Santa in a corner next to the fireplace, and then grabbed up the box full of the famous Christmas plant, chasing after her.

"So, what are you getting me for Christmas this year?" Hermione asked casually stringing the first piece on the portrait entrance. "I've run out of that perfume you gave me last year."

I stopped dead in his tracks and even my soul sucked in a large breath. Was she just talking about what I hoped she wasn't talking about? Surely she hadn't just asked me that very thing I had just been trying to forget. I had to be sure though.

"Excuse me?"

Hermione looked over at me almost confused before picking another mistletoe branch from the box. "You gave me perfume last year. It smelled _so_ heavenly. A bit strange but still so heavenly."

I felt my ears prickling a bit and my face swelled with pride. All this time I thought she hated it…but…she…didn't?

"Oh…" My face fell. "Well, it was really expensive. I don't have enough saved for anymore right now and I…er…" I paused feeling my face light up like a Christmas tree. I had done it. Back to the subject I hated. My money. Or lack thereof anyway. The one that brought me most shame.

"Well, I was hoping _that_ wasn't true," Hermione smiled surely as she hung yet another branch above the girls' dorm door. "…that it was expensive. I hoped you wouldn't spend too much on me. You could buy something more useful for yourself. For example a book or something like that." She winked at me knowing full well I'd never in my life buy a book. For myself anyway.

"Well, I could try to get some more if you really like it that much."

Hermione blushed, something she hadn't done for a while nowadays. "No, that's fine. I have something better in mind and it costs hardly anything at all."

My ears perked up. Anything to make her happy was something I needed to hear. And if it wasn't expensive, even better!

"Well you see…"

Hermione picked up a twig of mistletoe and twiddled it in her fingers. "It's not really a present, it's more or a…well…"

I gulped loudly and watched her bite her lip. It always made me a bit uneasy how beautiful she looked when she did that. Hermione slid around the box of mistletoe, the only thing that separated us from each other, and stood just beneath my nose staring up at me, still biting her lip.

"It's something I wouldn't normally ask for. But I'm getting tired of waiting for it to come to me." Hermione's hand crawled up my stomach and rested on my chest leaving a small trail of jitters behind it.

Either my lungs had collapsed or I had forgotten how to breathe. Either way, my body was screaming for oxygen and I didn't know how to change that. I just…forgot.

"You see, Ron, you think I'm a bossy know-it-all, who just likes to complain a lot over homework. But I like more things than just that. I'm a girl too you know." She started tearing at that lip again and wasn't taking her hand from my chest.

I exhaled but it sounded almost like a grunt than a sigh. "Yeah, you are a girl," I said in an almost inaudible whisper. I knew that for a definite fact the way I studied her these past years.

"And I- I just need to, er, to let you know…know that I-I, er…"

Hermione's other hand, the one still clutching the mistletoe, rose above her head and dangled the plant over her curls. I could tell she was shaking. Little bits from the twig were falling all over the place from her convulsive tremor. Hermione's breath could have matched mine identically as she gasped to breathe. And her face looked as if it had been smeared with red paint.

And she just stood there, mistletoe over her head, breathing raggedly, and shaking spastically in her shoes. I couldn't move either. So we just stood there face to face, both not thinking of anything except how terribly scared we actually were.

And then an impulse ran through my veins so fast I couldn't catch myself before I acted. All I knew was that I had to stop that look she was giving me, that look of absolute terror. I knew how that felt all too well. The horror of being left standing alone in the cold. My arms suddenly grabbed her waste into my hands and pulled her towards me forcefully. Our lips crashed against each others passionately and we both let out a sigh of gratitude and relief.

Hermione's hand fell to her waist and the mistletoe dropped from her grip as she reached forward for my face. She ran her hands through my hair as I breathed in her scent. And…funnily enough… it was familiar… _very_ familiar. Something a bit unusual… like some sort of _unusual_ perfume.

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**(A/N) Well, how'd you like it? Please review. I can't make an improvement in my writing without you all. And until then you'll have to read the same crap as above. Thanks.**

**Love from Lizzie**


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